Real Guitar Cab Users ….. Your Profile Search is Over ……I have found your PERFECT Amp-only profiles ….. they are …..

  • …… the Michael Britt Studio Profiles …. and no Im not kidding ….. and yes I know these are not proper 3.0 merged / direct profiles …… but it doesn’t matter :)


    To explain


    For the last 6 months or so, my live [ pop / rock / harder rock ] live rig is the KPA with a CLR and MB’s studio profiles ….. sounds amazing …. no new news there


    Recently I had a yearning to get more of a real-guitar-cab live sound.


    As amazing as the KPA + CLR + MB Profiles combo is ….it still lacks that certain something …. you know what I mean ….. that grit and grind and gut-punch that only a guitar cab can give you.


    So …. I pulled out my old trusty 2 x 12 open back Celestion G12T-75 cab – it is wired to mono or L+R stereo with 3 inputs – L + R -or- mono.


    Grabbed a neutral class d power amp – picked up a Harley Benton GPA400 – super cheap but super loud and super flat and clean.


    Bought some excellent / amazing direct commercial profiles ...... result ….. sounded great -but- not quite what I was hoping for ... soemthing didnt feel quite right.


    As a %100 total long shot, in a “what the hey” kind of moment, I loaded up my MB Studio CLR presets and simply just turned of the KPA Cab globally.


    Now …… the following will only make sense to those of you that use MB’s studio profiles ……remember when you first got them, you loaded them up and you started playing and you instantly smiled and knew ......: ah ha, now I get it … “ ...... well, initially all I did was turn the Cab off globally and starting scrolling through my Studio profiles with my real cab unchanged ….. and there it was ….. quite literally the best real-cab-guitar tone I could want.


    Quite literally, the ONLY tweaks I then proceeded to make were:


    - rolled off all the Low EQ below about 120hz
    - gently rolled off a bit of the high EQ above about 8k / 10k
    - very slightly boosted the front MID … +1 or +2 was perfect
    - very slightly cut the BASS …. -1 or -2 was perfect
    - very slightly adjusted the TREBLE and PRESENCE to taste …. -1 or -2 on each was plenty
    - added a GEQ slot with a very slight +1db boost in the 2k <-> 5k region
    - slightly increased/decreased the Amp Definition to taste
    - and critically as always, this was all done at live stage volume with my cab about 6 feet away but pointed directly at my ears
    - and an unexpected further bonus was that with the Cab OFF, I was ale to insert a COMP slot and it finally acted and responded as I expected it too [ ie: much more transparently and subtly] as opposed to with the Cab ON [full studio profile]

    Now ...... obviously ...... the above are the settings my my real cab for my ears with the profiles that I use ….. and given each real cab sounds different, you will need to adjust accordingly …. but the above are very minor changes.


    know that on paper, as these are Studio profiles, they should not work as well as dedicated proper merged / direct 3.0 profiles ….. but. they. just. do .....period.


    It is a testament to 2 things ……


    (i) how MB eq’s his amp tones - it was obvious from the first few seconds of using his studio profiles when I first got them that he understands that the beating heart of all great electric guitar tones lives in the mids ...... he just gets it


    and


    (ii) how amazing the Kemper Amp/Cab "splitting algorithm" is


    If you are looking for fantastic profiles to use with a real guitar cab with the KPA Cab off -and you don’t need or want ultra-high-gain / metal sounds- ..... then try Michael's studio profiles .... they are astonishing.


    Hope this helps some real cab users


    Ben


    PS: As always, I just want to be clear that I have no direct or indirect connection or aarrangement of any kind with Michael …. other than being a very happy user of his profiles :)

  • Thanks for the detailed description but to use a real guitar cab with a power amp is a thing which many, many users do. And I can't for the life of me see a reason why this should only work with Michael Britt profiles.

    I could have farted and it would have sounded good! (Brian Johnson)

  • Thanks for the detailed description but to use a real guitar cab with a power amp is a thing which many, many users do. And I can't for the life of me see a reason why this should only work with Michael Britt profiles.


    Hey.


    It works with any profile - merged or not - when 3.0 came out I tried a stack of them this way - good but not great - I recently bought some more newer dedicated merged profiles - much better but still ....... it was just luck that of all things the MB studio profiles sound perfect - to my ears at least.


    But yes - any profile - studio or merged - can be used this way.


    The "revelation" if you will was that a known fantastic sounding studio profile set alos sounded equally perfect this way :)


    Ben

  • Glad you found what works for you man. It's true though, studio profiles from many users have always worked with an amp and cab, well before mbritt profiles and long before fw 3.


    I think the good news here is that you found a combo that nails what you were after in a guitar sound and that's a great thing :)

  • Good observation!


    Pretty sure I recently saw a video of Michael Britt explaining his live rig which was the Kemper running into the power amp of a Mesa Lonestar, which was feeding his 3P 2x12. If Michael himself is using his profiles with a real 2x12 it would stand to reason his profiles would work for anyone using that type of rig.


    I keep wanting ting to build a 2x12 with the spare Scumback S65's I have sitting in my Vox AC30. This thread is pushing me over the edge.

    Husband, Father, Pajama Enthusiast

  • In my (limited) experience, great studio profiles will also work very well with a guitar cab and monitor cab off. This is good cause it means that you can still send a nice studio profile to FOH.
    If you like mbritt's profiles through your frfr, chances are you will also like them through a guitar cab. This is true for all profiles, and the opposite as well.
    But the speaker I'm using (G12H30) is supposed to be quite versatile, so you may have a different experience if using Vintage 30s for instance.



    Now what puzzles me is that so far, my favorite profiles with a guitar cab are studio profiles, and not merged. But the offer for merged profiles is still quite limited, so maybe that explains it. Still I've done a couple of direct profiles of my tube amp, and found the result to be very close to the original, so I don't understand why I usually don't really like the other direct or merged profiles I've tried. Making a good studio profiles requires a lot of experience and good mics; if you don't know what you're doing, you can make your profiled boutique amp sound like crap. With direct profiles (and the direct part of merged profiles) you can't really go wrong, you just need to dial in your amp and let the profiler do the magic !

  • I'm pretty new to the kemper world but so far there is something which puzzles me: no rigs ID or tags indicate to which guitar they are aimed. Playing a strat or a LP sounds way different, profiles needs different tweaks, at least tweaked profiles sound consider that. Without going into much details, single coil vs. humbucker and position (bridge, neck) should be indicated . This should be a must for commercial profiles IMHO.

  • Overall thanks for sharing and glad you found your sound. That is an endless journey we are all on, but I would like you opinion on other profiles. Have you experimented with any others to see if you get the same effect?

    :thumbup: "A single note can be short lived but a melody will last a life time." Paul Muller

  • Hey all


    - guitar is a stock standard 1990 USA Tele - only change is that the bridge pickup is a Dimarzio Area Hot T Tele pickup - noisless - guitar vol at around 7 and its the classic tele sound - guitat vol fully opened up to 10 and it like a mix of a P90 / Humbcuker ......fantastic p/u ... classic Tele tone + more grunt if you want it.


    - I too had got my mind stuck in the "merged" for real guitar cabs and "studio" for FRFR ... go figure .... it was a total fluke try on my part :)


    - all guitar speakers deliver well over 8k / 10k .... actually well over 20k ...... quick example - my speakers are these:-


    http://celestion.com/product/15/g12t75/


    - if you look at the freq graph you will see that it is starts rolling off from the hi from 5k <-> 10k and rolling off the low from 100hz down
    - then it further rolls / dips / bumps the highs from 10k <-> 20k
    - they dont plot further than 20k but it will transmitt well beyond 20k *but* its dominant / primary freq's are 80hz <-> 5k


    In general, if a guitar speaker absolutly cut everything below 80hz and absoluty cut everythiong above 5k [ and you can actually do this will a parellel crossover ]


    - it would sound like amplified cardboard :) ..... and none of your first / second / third order [octave] harmonics would be heard ..... honeslty it would be terrible sounding


    - guitar speakers are in fact a FR [ Ful Range ] speaker but they just arent anywhere near flat across the full freq range ...aactually not anywhere near flat even in their primary "mid' ranges .... and thats why we love their sound so much :) .... they dampen all the right freq's at just the right points ..... God bless guitar speaker :)


    Re: other profiles


    - I have tried other studio / merged profiles and they will all do the same "thing" .....but how well they do ithe real-guitar-cab "thing" depends totally on how the Amp tones being profiled are set up and EQ'd for the profiling session ....... dare I say, when many / most people set up thier amps to profile, the way they EQ the amp to-be-profiled-sound is to my ears ....and I stress again ...to my ears ..... very flat / lifeless / mid-less with hyped low end and hyped hi end ....... again ... to my ears ..... precisley how a guitar should never sound ..... and this is why MB's tones translate perfectly in either Full Studio Profile use or Cab-less use .... simply put, he knows how to eq an amp to get "the" sound


    ..... and ..... I'll go out on a limb here and state the number one thing I have learned about the Kemper since having it ..... yes it is an awesome machine and its tweaking options are almost endless ...... BUT ...... as brilliant as the Kemper is ....... a crap or badly eq'd or gained profile cannot be turned in to a brilliant profile ......the Kemper will " polish " it beautifully ...... but you will still have the proverbial "polished turd" ..... if a Profile is well done from the real amps end, it will need very minimal tweaking ...... just a whisker of EQ and Definition ...... and I mean a whisker .... and a personal rule I use is that I never adust the Gain on any profile ...... if the gain aint right ... I look for another profile ..... and woith MB's profiles, that base is covered too


    As mattt67 said above ...... if it sounds "right " to your ears as a Studio Profile ....... its going to sound "right" to your ears with Cab off in to a real guitar cab [ as long as you are using it with a neutral power amp of course too so you avoid a 2nd layer of "power-amp" simulation ].


    All the best and hope this helps.
    Ben

    Edited 3 times, last by benifin ().

  • Michael Britt Studio Profiles?........................ I must be missing something as I cant find those particular named profiles on Micheal`s site. Are they all under another name? Many thanks
    Lindsay

  • Hey Lindsay


    All of Michaels packs / profiles are full studio profiles [ ie: Amp and Cab all "baked-in-together" ] - he doesnt do merged / direct profiles.


    Hope this helps.
    Ben

  • Hey Lindsay


    All of Michaels packs / profiles are full studio profiles [ ie: Amp and Cab all "baked-in-together" ] - he doesnt do merged / direct profiles.


    Hope this helps.
    Ben

    The MBritt profiles in Kemper's free profile pack are merged, as are the v1.5 profiles that Michael put on Rig Exchange.

  • Your guitar cab it transmitting this? :?:


    I don't think that was what he meant.... Only because they don't of course....

    If you use FRFR the benefit of a merged profile is that the cabinet is totally separated in the profile.


    For my edification only... ;) Kemper/Axe-FX III/ Quad Cortex user

  • I'm pretty new to the kemper world but so far there is something which puzzles me: no rigs ID or tags indicate to which guitar they are aimed. Playing a strat or a LP sounds way different, profiles needs different tweaks, at least tweaked profiles sound consider that. Without going into much details, single coil vs. humbucker and position (bridge, neck) should be indicated . This should be a must for commercial profiles IMHO.


    There are rigs that sound good with either SCs or HBs. Of course they sound different, as it would be for an amp which you plug a random guitar into.
    I don't think a specific indication of the specific PU the profiler liked at the moment of profiling can be universal, since we all are after different sounds and I might like to use a rig you love with your central SC for my neck HB or P90, since I love big fat sounds.
    It's like those stickers you find (found?) in an amp when you buy it, with some hints at tone settings meant for specific genres: never found them useful at all...


    :)

  • yeah, I'd better have thought twice about it before I wrote that :huh:
    Anyways, I agree with you since you always need to tweak a little profiles in order to optimize your sound (guitar, room, etc.). However, I surprisingly tweak much less that I would expect. Note that I only run untweaked profiles and did not purchase any so far. All tweaked profiles I have played sounded too hifi. The rawer the better IMHO.